Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) Test - 31

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Throughout most of world history, a vast majority of the world’s population was poor. Whether your ancestors are from China, India, Africa, Europe or elsewhere, the odds are very high that most of them lived on little more than a few dollars a day. That is no longer the case [as] the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has dropped precipitously in the last two centuries... How did the world get to this point?

On the surface, the answer to this question is simple: the last two centuries have seen more economic growth than the rest of human history combined. Economic growth refers to a sustained increase in economic prosperity as measured by the total goods and services produced in the economy... It is the key to alleviating the type of poverty experienced by almost everyone who lived prior to 1800, and that still plagues way too large of a share of the world’s population today...

Economic growth on its own is not necessarily a panacea. It can be accompanied by environmental degradation, increased inequality, or worsening health outcomes. For instance, air quality declined and life expectancy fell during the British Industrial Revolution. Today, issues such as climate change and social polarization are among the most important challenges that policy-makers face. [But] economic growth makes available the resources and the new technologies needed to tackle these important challenges...

There were spurts of economic improvement in the past. One such period of economic improvement occurred in classical Greece. Others were due to political pacification, such as the “Pax Islamica” in the centuries following the spread of Islam. The “Islamic Peace” permitted higher levels of trade and the spread of agricultural techniques and crops...Another cause of temporary economic improvement was widespread death through disease. While plagues were undoubtedly awful for the people who lived through them, they did mean that there were fewer mouths to feed. Per capita income tended to rise for at least a few generations in the wake of these events. The most important cause of economic improvement, however, was technological change. New varieties of disease-resistant grains, new agricultural techniques that improved soil quality or irrigation, and improvements to the plow are all examples of new technologies that allowed more people to be fed with less labor.

Yet, prior to the 18th century, all spurts of economic improvement were temporary. What matters in the long run is whether growth is sustained... What is unique about developed countries today is not that they have experienced a rapid acceleration of economic growth. Many countries that are poor today have experienced temporary growth accelerations in the past as well. What distinguishes rich countries is that they have not experienced growth reversals... From this perspective, the main difference between rich and poor countries is not that rich countries grow fast during their periods of growth. Rich countries are those that have experienced fewer periods in which the economy has gotten smaller.

Sustained economic growth has been accompanied by a dramatic reorganization of society and production. This is what we refer to as economic development. By this we mean a fundamental and transformative restructuring of the economy associated with urbanization and the growth of non-agricultural sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and the service sector. This process of development was also associated with the emergence of new ways of organizing economic activity: factories, corporations, and stock markets.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Throughout most of world history, a vast majority of the world’s population was poor. Whether your ancestors are from China, India, Africa, Europe or elsewhere, the odds are very high that most of them lived on little more than a few dollars a day. That is no longer the case [as] the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has dropped precipitously in the last two centuries... How did the world get to this point?

On the surface, the answer to this question is simple: the last two centuries have seen more economic growth than the rest of human history combined. Economic growth refers to a sustained increase in economic prosperity as measured by the total goods and services produced in the economy... It is the key to alleviating the type of poverty experienced by almost everyone who lived prior to 1800, and that still plagues way too large of a share of the world’s population today...

Economic growth on its own is not necessarily a panacea. It can be accompanied by environmental degradation, increased inequality, or worsening health outcomes. For instance, air quality declined and life expectancy fell during the British Industrial Revolution. Today, issues such as climate change and social polarization are among the most important challenges that policy-makers face. [But] economic growth makes available the resources and the new technologies needed to tackle these important challenges...

There were spurts of economic improvement in the past. One such period of economic improvement occurred in classical Greece. Others were due to political pacification, such as the “Pax Islamica” in the centuries following the spread of Islam. The “Islamic Peace” permitted higher levels of trade and the spread of agricultural techniques and crops...Another cause of temporary economic improvement was widespread death through disease. While plagues were undoubtedly awful for the people who lived through them, they did mean that there were fewer mouths to feed. Per capita income tended to rise for at least a few generations in the wake of these events. The most important cause of economic improvement, however, was technological change. New varieties of disease-resistant grains, new agricultural techniques that improved soil quality or irrigation, and improvements to the plow are all examples of new technologies that allowed more people to be fed with less labor.

Yet, prior to the 18th century, all spurts of economic improvement were temporary. What matters in the long run is whether growth is sustained... What is unique about developed countries today is not that they have experienced a rapid acceleration of economic growth. Many countries that are poor today have experienced temporary growth accelerations in the past as well. What distinguishes rich countries is that they have not experienced growth reversals... From this perspective, the main difference between rich and poor countries is not that rich countries grow fast during their periods of growth. Rich countries are those that have experienced fewer periods in which the economy has gotten smaller.

Sustained economic growth has been accompanied by a dramatic reorganization of society and production. This is what we refer to as economic development. By this we mean a fundamental and transformative restructuring of the economy associated with urbanization and the growth of non-agricultural sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and the service sector. This process of development was also associated with the emergence of new ways of organizing economic activity: factories, corporations, and stock markets.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Throughout most of world history, a vast majority of the world’s population was poor. Whether your ancestors are from China, India, Africa, Europe or elsewhere, the odds are very high that most of them lived on little more than a few dollars a day. That is no longer the case [as] the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has dropped precipitously in the last two centuries... How did the world get to this point?

On the surface, the answer to this question is simple: the last two centuries have seen more economic growth than the rest of human history combined. Economic growth refers to a sustained increase in economic prosperity as measured by the total goods and services produced in the economy... It is the key to alleviating the type of poverty experienced by almost everyone who lived prior to 1800, and that still plagues way too large of a share of the world’s population today...

Economic growth on its own is not necessarily a panacea. It can be accompanied by environmental degradation, increased inequality, or worsening health outcomes. For instance, air quality declined and life expectancy fell during the British Industrial Revolution. Today, issues such as climate change and social polarization are among the most important challenges that policy-makers face. [But] economic growth makes available the resources and the new technologies needed to tackle these important challenges...

There were spurts of economic improvement in the past. One such period of economic improvement occurred in classical Greece. Others were due to political pacification, such as the “Pax Islamica” in the centuries following the spread of Islam. The “Islamic Peace” permitted higher levels of trade and the spread of agricultural techniques and crops...Another cause of temporary economic improvement was widespread death through disease. While plagues were undoubtedly awful for the people who lived through them, they did mean that there were fewer mouths to feed. Per capita income tended to rise for at least a few generations in the wake of these events. The most important cause of economic improvement, however, was technological change. New varieties of disease-resistant grains, new agricultural techniques that improved soil quality or irrigation, and improvements to the plow are all examples of new technologies that allowed more people to be fed with less labor.

Yet, prior to the 18th century, all spurts of economic improvement were temporary. What matters in the long run is whether growth is sustained... What is unique about developed countries today is not that they have experienced a rapid acceleration of economic growth. Many countries that are poor today have experienced temporary growth accelerations in the past as well. What distinguishes rich countries is that they have not experienced growth reversals... From this perspective, the main difference between rich and poor countries is not that rich countries grow fast during their periods of growth. Rich countries are those that have experienced fewer periods in which the economy has gotten smaller.

Sustained economic growth has been accompanied by a dramatic reorganization of society and production. This is what we refer to as economic development. By this we mean a fundamental and transformative restructuring of the economy associated with urbanization and the growth of non-agricultural sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and the service sector. This process of development was also associated with the emergence of new ways of organizing economic activity: factories, corporations, and stock markets.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

Throughout most of world history, a vast majority of the world’s population was poor. Whether your ancestors are from China, India, Africa, Europe or elsewhere, the odds are very high that most of them lived on little more than a few dollars a day. That is no longer the case [as] the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has dropped precipitously in the last two centuries... How did the world get to this point?

On the surface, the answer to this question is simple: the last two centuries have seen more economic growth than the rest of human history combined. Economic growth refers to a sustained increase in economic prosperity as measured by the total goods and services produced in the economy... It is the key to alleviating the type of poverty experienced by almost everyone who lived prior to 1800, and that still plagues way too large of a share of the world’s population today...

Economic growth on its own is not necessarily a panacea. It can be accompanied by environmental degradation, increased inequality, or worsening health outcomes. For instance, air quality declined and life expectancy fell during the British Industrial Revolution. Today, issues such as climate change and social polarization are among the most important challenges that policy-makers face. [But] economic growth makes available the resources and the new technologies needed to tackle these important challenges...

There were spurts of economic improvement in the past. One such period of economic improvement occurred in classical Greece. Others were due to political pacification, such as the “Pax Islamica” in the centuries following the spread of Islam. The “Islamic Peace” permitted higher levels of trade and the spread of agricultural techniques and crops...Another cause of temporary economic improvement was widespread death through disease. While plagues were undoubtedly awful for the people who lived through them, they did mean that there were fewer mouths to feed. Per capita income tended to rise for at least a few generations in the wake of these events. The most important cause of economic improvement, however, was technological change. New varieties of disease-resistant grains, new agricultural techniques that improved soil quality or irrigation, and improvements to the plow are all examples of new technologies that allowed more people to be fed with less labor.

Yet, prior to the 18th century, all spurts of economic improvement were temporary. What matters in the long run is whether growth is sustained... What is unique about developed countries today is not that they have experienced a rapid acceleration of economic growth. Many countries that are poor today have experienced temporary growth accelerations in the past as well. What distinguishes rich countries is that they have not experienced growth reversals... From this perspective, the main difference between rich and poor countries is not that rich countries grow fast during their periods of growth. Rich countries are those that have experienced fewer periods in which the economy has gotten smaller.

Sustained economic growth has been accompanied by a dramatic reorganization of society and production. This is what we refer to as economic development. By this we mean a fundamental and transformative restructuring of the economy associated with urbanization and the growth of non-agricultural sectors of the economy such as manufacturing and the service sector. This process of development was also associated with the emergence of new ways of organizing economic activity: factories, corporations, and stock markets.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Wilson’s “exposé” on Darwin characterised] the famous scientist as a fraud, a thief, a liar, a racist and a rouser of nazism... And so, here we are again, quietly drawing breath and smiling politely while the same familiar “discoveries” about Darwin arise once more. Was the blood spilled by the Nazis on Darwin’s hands? Did he steal his big idea from others? Is evolution by natural selection a great hoax? Are the “Darwinians” covering something up? ...

In the world’s museums and store-rooms, there are hundreds of millions of [fossils] and they all fit into broadly recognisable patterns of geological age and within the framework of what you or I would call evolution... Knowing what I have learned about the intricacy and rarity of fossilisation, if anything would make me genuinely consider the presence of an all-seeing God it would be the discovery of an unbroken chain of 60,000 fossil skeletons, following the strata upwards, going smoothly from species A to species B. But that’s not the point, I guess, and Wilson should know it.

Scientists tend to fit into two camps on the issue of how to deal with this familiar kind of Darwin-baiting. In the modern age some, such as American science communicator Bill Nye, choose to debate the anti-Darwinians on live TV. Others, such as Richard Dawkins, prefer to starve them of the oxygen they require by politely ignoring them – a kind of personal exercise in the non-validation of non-scientific ideas...

The truth is that – and this is worth saying a million times over – most scientists probably don’t think about Darwin very much in their day-to-day studies and would consider themselves as much “Darwinist” as they would “round-Earthers” or “wifi-users”. This is, after all, the best working theory we have to understand the nature that we see around us. Also, I think we are all OK with entertaining the idea that, if a more scientifically accurate way of explaining the diversity of life on Earth comes along, Darwin would be ousted. It’s just that, based on current evidence, Darwin’s ideas still seem capable of explaining much, if not all, of what we see in nature...

Sadly, many people will not find their way to this end-point, so suspicious are they of science, evolution and scientific ideas. For me, one of the most pressing problems in science is how we engage this lost audience, because they’re missing out on a wonderful experience – that of chasing real truths about some of the most beautiful and complex repeating patterns in nature, an apparent universal law that many people can and do balance regularly alongside their religious beliefs. For starters, their scepticism could come in quite handy.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Wilson’s “exposé” on Darwin characterised] the famous scientist as a fraud, a thief, a liar, a racist and a rouser of nazism... And so, here we are again, quietly drawing breath and smiling politely while the same familiar “discoveries” about Darwin arise once more. Was the blood spilled by the Nazis on Darwin’s hands? Did he steal his big idea from others? Is evolution by natural selection a great hoax? Are the “Darwinians” covering something up? ...

In the world’s museums and store-rooms, there are hundreds of millions of [fossils] and they all fit into broadly recognisable patterns of geological age and within the framework of what you or I would call evolution... Knowing what I have learned about the intricacy and rarity of fossilisation, if anything would make me genuinely consider the presence of an all-seeing God it would be the discovery of an unbroken chain of 60,000 fossil skeletons, following the strata upwards, going smoothly from species A to species B. But that’s not the point, I guess, and Wilson should know it.

Scientists tend to fit into two camps on the issue of how to deal with this familiar kind of Darwin-baiting. In the modern age some, such as American science communicator Bill Nye, choose to debate the anti-Darwinians on live TV. Others, such as Richard Dawkins, prefer to starve them of the oxygen they require by politely ignoring them – a kind of personal exercise in the non-validation of non-scientific ideas...

The truth is that – and this is worth saying a million times over – most scientists probably don’t think about Darwin very much in their day-to-day studies and would consider themselves as much “Darwinist” as they would “round-Earthers” or “wifi-users”. This is, after all, the best working theory we have to understand the nature that we see around us. Also, I think we are all OK with entertaining the idea that, if a more scientifically accurate way of explaining the diversity of life on Earth comes along, Darwin would be ousted. It’s just that, based on current evidence, Darwin’s ideas still seem capable of explaining much, if not all, of what we see in nature...

Sadly, many people will not find their way to this end-point, so suspicious are they of science, evolution and scientific ideas. For me, one of the most pressing problems in science is how we engage this lost audience, because they’re missing out on a wonderful experience – that of chasing real truths about some of the most beautiful and complex repeating patterns in nature, an apparent universal law that many people can and do balance regularly alongside their religious beliefs. For starters, their scepticism could come in quite handy.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Wilson’s “exposé” on Darwin characterised] the famous scientist as a fraud, a thief, a liar, a racist and a rouser of nazism... And so, here we are again, quietly drawing breath and smiling politely while the same familiar “discoveries” about Darwin arise once more. Was the blood spilled by the Nazis on Darwin’s hands? Did he steal his big idea from others? Is evolution by natural selection a great hoax? Are the “Darwinians” covering something up? ...

In the world’s museums and store-rooms, there are hundreds of millions of [fossils] and they all fit into broadly recognisable patterns of geological age and within the framework of what you or I would call evolution... Knowing what I have learned about the intricacy and rarity of fossilisation, if anything would make me genuinely consider the presence of an all-seeing God it would be the discovery of an unbroken chain of 60,000 fossil skeletons, following the strata upwards, going smoothly from species A to species B. But that’s not the point, I guess, and Wilson should know it.

Scientists tend to fit into two camps on the issue of how to deal with this familiar kind of Darwin-baiting. In the modern age some, such as American science communicator Bill Nye, choose to debate the anti-Darwinians on live TV. Others, such as Richard Dawkins, prefer to starve them of the oxygen they require by politely ignoring them – a kind of personal exercise in the non-validation of non-scientific ideas...

The truth is that – and this is worth saying a million times over – most scientists probably don’t think about Darwin very much in their day-to-day studies and would consider themselves as much “Darwinist” as they would “round-Earthers” or “wifi-users”. This is, after all, the best working theory we have to understand the nature that we see around us. Also, I think we are all OK with entertaining the idea that, if a more scientifically accurate way of explaining the diversity of life on Earth comes along, Darwin would be ousted. It’s just that, based on current evidence, Darwin’s ideas still seem capable of explaining much, if not all, of what we see in nature...

Sadly, many people will not find their way to this end-point, so suspicious are they of science, evolution and scientific ideas. For me, one of the most pressing problems in science is how we engage this lost audience, because they’re missing out on a wonderful experience – that of chasing real truths about some of the most beautiful and complex repeating patterns in nature, an apparent universal law that many people can and do balance regularly alongside their religious beliefs. For starters, their scepticism could come in quite handy.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Wilson’s “exposé” on Darwin characterised] the famous scientist as a fraud, a thief, a liar, a racist and a rouser of nazism... And so, here we are again, quietly drawing breath and smiling politely while the same familiar “discoveries” about Darwin arise once more. Was the blood spilled by the Nazis on Darwin’s hands? Did he steal his big idea from others? Is evolution by natural selection a great hoax? Are the “Darwinians” covering something up? ...

In the world’s museums and store-rooms, there are hundreds of millions of [fossils] and they all fit into broadly recognisable patterns of geological age and within the framework of what you or I would call evolution... Knowing what I have learned about the intricacy and rarity of fossilisation, if anything would make me genuinely consider the presence of an all-seeing God it would be the discovery of an unbroken chain of 60,000 fossil skeletons, following the strata upwards, going smoothly from species A to species B. But that’s not the point, I guess, and Wilson should know it.

Scientists tend to fit into two camps on the issue of how to deal with this familiar kind of Darwin-baiting. In the modern age some, such as American science communicator Bill Nye, choose to debate the anti-Darwinians on live TV. Others, such as Richard Dawkins, prefer to starve them of the oxygen they require by politely ignoring them – a kind of personal exercise in the non-validation of non-scientific ideas...

The truth is that – and this is worth saying a million times over – most scientists probably don’t think about Darwin very much in their day-to-day studies and would consider themselves as much “Darwinist” as they would “round-Earthers” or “wifi-users”. This is, after all, the best working theory we have to understand the nature that we see around us. Also, I think we are all OK with entertaining the idea that, if a more scientifically accurate way of explaining the diversity of life on Earth comes along, Darwin would be ousted. It’s just that, based on current evidence, Darwin’s ideas still seem capable of explaining much, if not all, of what we see in nature...

Sadly, many people will not find their way to this end-point, so suspicious are they of science, evolution and scientific ideas. For me, one of the most pressing problems in science is how we engage this lost audience, because they’re missing out on a wonderful experience – that of chasing real truths about some of the most beautiful and complex repeating patterns in nature, an apparent universal law that many people can and do balance regularly alongside their religious beliefs. For starters, their scepticism could come in quite handy.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

The bestselling 2008 book Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, helped inspire experimentally tested, psychologically informed policy work around the world, often developed by “behavioural insight teams” in or adjacent to government. Now two leading behavioural scientists, Nick Chater and George Loewenstein, have published an academic working paper suggesting that the movement has lost its way. Professors Chater and Loewenstein are academic advisers to the UK’s behavioural insight group, and...it’s worth paying attention to what they say.

Ponder an advertising campaign from 1971 titled “Crying Indian”. This powerful TV commercial depicts a Native American man paddling down a river [laden with trash. A voice over says] “People start pollution. People can stop it.” The Native American man turns to the camera, a single tear rolling down his cheek. But the message was not what it seemed (and not just because the actor’s parents were in fact Italian): it was funded by some of the leading companies in food and drink packaging. The advert placed responsibility squarely on the shoulders of individuals making selfish choices. It wasn’t governments who didn’t provide bins, or manufacturers who made unrecyclable products. No, the problem was you.

Chater and Loewenstein argue that behavioural scientists naturally fall into the habit of seeing problems in the same way...If your problem is basically that fallible individuals are making bad choices, behavioural science is an excellent solution. If, however, the real problem is not individual but systemic, then nudges are at best limited, and at worst, a harmful diversion.

Historians [now] argue that the Crying Indian campaign was a deliberate attempt by corporate interests to change the subject. Is behavioural public policy, accidentally or deliberately, a similar distraction? A look at climate change policy suggests it might be. Behavioural scientists themselves are clear enough that nudging is no real substitute for a carbon price — Thaler and Sunstein say as much in Nudge. Politicians, by contrast, have preferred to bypass the carbon price and move straight to the pain-free nudging. Nudge enthusiast David Cameron, in a speech given shortly before he became prime minister, declared that “the best way to get someone to cut their electricity bill” was to cleverly reformat the bill itself. This is politics as the art of avoiding difficult decisions. No behavioural scientist would suggest that it was close to sufficient.

Another problem is that empirically tested, behaviourally rigorous bad policy can be bad policy nonetheless. For example, it has become fashionable to argue that people should be placed on an organ donor registry by default, because this dramatically expands the number of people registered as donors. But, as Thaler and Sunstein themselves keep having to explain, this is a bad idea. Most organ donation happens only after consultation with a grieving family — and default-bloated donor registries do not help families work out what their loved one might have wanted.

Behavioural science is a great way of finding small tweaks that can make a substantial difference to behaviour. Such tweaks help if the behaviour change itself solves a problem, but that cannot be taken for granted. It is easy to take a perfectly sound behavioural insight and turn it into a botched piece of policy.

Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow .

The bestselling 2008 book Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, helped inspire experimentally tested, psychologically informed policy work around the world, often developed by “behavioural insight teams” in or adjacent to government. Now two leading behavioural scientists, Nick Chater and George Loewenstein, have published an academic working paper suggesting that the movement has lost its way. Professors Chater and Loewenstein are academic advisers to the UK’s behavioural insight group, and...it’s worth paying attention to what they say.

Ponder an advertising campaign from 1971 titled “Crying Indian”. This powerful TV commercial depicts a Native American man paddling down a river [laden with trash. A voice over says] “People start pollution. People can stop it.” The Native American man turns to the camera, a single tear rolling down his cheek. But the message was not what it seemed (and not just because the actor’s parents were in fact Italian): it was funded by some of the leading companies in food and drink packaging. The advert placed responsibility squarely on the shoulders of individuals making selfish choices. It wasn’t governments who didn’t provide bins, or manufacturers who made unrecyclable products. No, the problem was you.

Chater and Loewenstein argue that behavioural scientists naturally fall into the habit of seeing problems in the same way...If your problem is basically that fallible individuals are making bad choices, behavioural science is an excellent solution. If, however, the real problem is not individual but systemic, then nudges are at best limited, and at worst, a harmful diversion.

Historians [now] argue that the Crying Indian campaign was a deliberate attempt by corporate interests to change the subject. Is behavioural public policy, accidentally or deliberately, a similar distraction? A look at climate change policy suggests it might be. Behavioural scientists themselves are clear enough that nudging is no real substitute for a carbon price — Thaler and Sunstein say as much in Nudge. Politicians, by contrast, have preferred to bypass the carbon price and move straight to the pain-free nudging. Nudge enthusiast David Cameron, in a speech given shortly before he became prime minister, declared that “the best way to get someone to cut their electricity bill” was to cleverly reformat the bill itself. This is politics as the art of avoiding difficult decisions. No behavioural scientist would suggest that it was close to sufficient.

Another problem is that empirically tested, behaviourally rigorous bad policy can be bad policy nonetheless. For example, it has become fashionable to argue that people should be placed on an organ donor registry by default, because this dramatically expands the number of people registered as donors. But, as Thaler and Sunstein themselves keep having to explain, this is a bad idea. Most organ donation happens only after consultation with a grieving family — and default-bloated donor registries do not help families work out what their loved one might have wanted.

Behavioural science is a great way of finding small tweaks that can make a substantial difference to behaviour. Such tweaks help if the behaviour change itself solves a problem, but that cannot be taken for granted. It is easy to take a perfectly sound behavioural insight and turn it into a botched piece of policy.